The Story of a Heart
by Jessie Blackwood
Summary: My first songfic, based on Benny Andersson's song of the same name. Just struck me as appropriate for Jack and Ianto's story. Have rated it T but only to be safe.


**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, etc. etc. etc. no infringement of copyright intended, etc, etc. just playing with them, like everyone else here.  
**

**My first songfic, a one-off, inspired by Benny Andersson's "Story of a Heart". The words struck me as just so appropriate for Jack and Ianto. **

**Warning though, last bit might make you cry if, like me, you cried after episode 4… ****Hope you enjoy. **

_It must have been him,_

_Just a glimpse of a face in the crowd,_

_That's all it takes,_

_My heart is racing._

_I stand in a trance,_

_As I stare at the back of a bus,_

_Knowing there's no use denying,_

_I can't stop thinking about us._

Ianto had no idea what to do. The mere sight of Jack Harkness turned him inside out, his heart racing, his stomach fluttering, palms sweating, nerves on edge. He couldn't concentrate, he couldn't eat, he wasn't sleeping. He felt…like the first time he had seen Lisa. The revelation hit him square between the eyes. He was back to being in that breathless state when you see someone you really like, you're too shy to tell them, you want to open your heart and lay it bare, you feel good just being next to them, you find any excuse to be in the same room, in the same space. It's a sweetly painful ache that fills the void where your heart used to be…it's the feeling of being…Ianto stopped dead in what he was doing. He swallowed a lump in his throat at the realisation. It was the feeling of being….oh God…_of being in_ _love_…. OhGod OhGodOhGod….

_The story of a heart_

_The story all of it mine,_

_Then you took it from me,_

_Every glorious line._

_I was safe and warm,_

_And now I'm out in the cold,_

_And I know I shouldn't have told my story._

_Story of a heart,_

_I laid myself open wide,_

_Yet to read the pages,_

_Where the ink hadn't dried,_

_All emotions pent up inside, my story._

Jack had him completely, heart, body, soul. His loyalty was to the man who had let him live, the same man he had hoped to see suffer, had hoped to be able to abandon to his fate like he had abandoned Lisa. Yet, he was Jack's man through and through, despite it all. Every fibre of Ianto Jones belonged to Jack Harkness, with no exceptions. He didn't feel safe any more, his soul laid bare as well as his body, naked under Jack's gaze. He felt flayed alive, stripped of everything he was.

_I try to resist,_

_But the images keep coming through,_

_So many years,_

_Still I'm defenceless._

Ianto Jones didn't know who he was any more. He was off balance, trying to resist this charismatic monster who had killed the woman he loved, straining to maintain the feelings of hatred and anger, trying, and failing, not to fall beneath the spell of the man who took his life away while letting him keep it, the man who was now giving him back everything he had lost and more. The man who was, single-handedly, rebuilding the shattered image that was Ianto Jones into the feeling, loving man he deserved to be.

_The house by the lake,_

_His hands resting awhile on the oars,_

_Speaking with quiet conviction,_

_Carefully unlocking doors._

Jack had unlocked something within him he thought long dead, lost to a previous life. After Lisa, there had been his inevitable denial that there could be anyone else, that his heart would ever be able to love again, to ever encompass another human being. To see her destroyed like that had almost destroyed him. Lying to people who had become, if not friends, then certainly people who shared his life, that had been abhorrent to him, even as he knew they wouldn't understand, they wouldn't forgive. He had done it anyway, because he loved her. Love in any form always beat the dark. Jack said that and Ianto believed that every word of it was truth.

_The story of a heart,_

_The story all of it mine,_

_Then you took it from me,_

_Every glorious line._

_I was safe and warm,_

_And now I'm out in the cold,_

_And I know I shouldn't have told my story._

Ianto's confusion was complete. He felt like he was betraying himself, allowing himself to say too much, to reveal things he should keep safe and secret, close to his heart. But he couldn't stay silent, he didn't want to. He wanted Jack to know everything, to see him for what he was, to understand he would do anything for him, be anything for him. It went beyond sex, beyond bodily pleasure. Once in a lifetime you might find a true Soulmate, someone who knows you utterly and still accepts you for who and what you are. And Ianto had found him.

_Did he see me,_

_Or did I just imagine it all,_

_Putting a face on a stranger,_

_A face I find more and more hard to recall_

Ianto knew he wasn't the same person any more. He wasn't the person he remembered, not the shy and awkward Junior Archivist nor the quietly anonymous receptionist nor the heartbroken wreck he had been when Lisa was killed. He could no longer remember who he had been, the person he was before he knew Jack didn't exist any more. Life before Jack didn't exist any more. He was stronger with Jack. He was braver, gentler, he was just…_more_.

_Never giving up I look for you everywhere_

_Time went by and sadness ,_

_Took the place of despair._

"It'll never be enough" Ianto had said once "It doesn't matter how long or how short the time we have together is, it'll never be enough… if we just understand that, then every minute will be precious….and if it'll never be enough, it doesn't matter how long it is anyway" Jack had laughed at Ianto's logic and pulled him close. "No matter how long it is, tomorrow or in 90 years, I'll never forget you Ianto Jones" he had said, burying his face in Ianto's hair, breathing in, losing himself in the essence of the man in his arms.

_In a way he'll stay with me,_

_Till death do us part._

_Like a shadow deep in my_

_Heart forever._

Jack would never forget the simple, quiet man who had so thoroughly stripped him of everything he was. In his quiet loyal unassuming way, Ianto Jones had insinuated himself deep into Jack's soul, the touch and the smell and the feel of him indelibly embedded in Jack's memory. Jack had told Ianto more than he would ever tell anyone ever again. Ianto's imprint would last forever, through thousands and thousands of years, the standard by which to compare each one of hundreds of lovers, the one shining light in that had kept him going through two millenia of darkness, a light that would cast a shadow deep in his heart forever…

_The story of a heart,_

_I laid myself open wide,_

_Yet to read the pages,_

_Where the ink hadn't dried._

_Swept away and lost in love,_

_What was I to do,_

_I just had to read it to you, my story._

**This one is for lovers everywhere, hope you enjoy, seemed right somehow, a story of a pairing that should not have ended so soon (and won't, if this site has anything to do with it!). Please review….**


End file.
